Arrests Increasing Among Young Americans, Study Finds

Doug Menuez/Photodisc/Thinkstock(CHARLOTTE, N.C.) — By age 23, up to 41 percent of American adolescents and young adults have been arrested at least once for something other than a minor traffic violation, according to a new study published Monday in the journal Pediatrics.

The study gives no indication of how many of these young people committed violent crimes versus how many were rounded up for more minor infractions, such as disturbing the peace. But the study’s authors say such a high percentage of arrests may point to a host of potential health and behavioral problems that put young people at risk for criminal activity.

“An arrest usually happens in context. There are usually other things going on in a kid’s life,” said study author Robert Brame, professor of criminal justice and criminology at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

In the study, Brame and his colleagues analyzed responses to a national survey of more than 7,000 young people between 1997 and 2008. They found that between 25 and 41 percent of the respondents reported one arrest by the age of 23; 16 to 27 percent of the respondents reported being arrested by age 18.

Not all of the young people remained in the study for all 11 years, accounting for the uncertainty reflected in the wide ranges of the study’s findings.

But even at the lowest ends of these ranges, the study’s findings were higher than projections of youth arrests made in 1965, the last time scientists studied this topic.

“Those are alarmingly high numbers,” said Dr. Eugene Beresin, a child psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital and professor at Harvard Medical School. “There are social, economic, educational and family risks associated with arrests. And we all have to be worried about that.”

Although an arrest doesn’t necessarily mean a child, teen or young adult is a criminal, previous research has connected run-ins with the law with other problems — drug addiction, physical or emotional abuse and poverty, to name a few.

Beresin said a high number of arrests could also indicate a high rate of untreated psychiatric disorders, another factor that has been linked to criminal activity. According to the Coalition for Juvenile Justice, a nonprofit group, between 50 to 75 percent of incarcerated young people have diagnosable mental health problems.